Devil's Pact
by Inferna Firesword
Summary: After an accident seperates them from their teams, Agura and Kyburi must place uneasy trust in each other to return home. No slash, but plenty of tension. Rated for safety.
1. Unease

**Author's Note: **I came up with this after re-watching the episodes _Cold as Ice_, _Ascent of the Red Sentients – Part 2, _and _Hunt For the Magmatrox. _Since putting Agura and Kyburi together usually results in sparks flying, putting them together and forcing them to work together would be very entertaining … you know, assuming they don't try and cross each other, which just makes it even funnier. =P

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing, save for the circumstances of this story. Hopefully Kyburi and Agura will forgive me for this.

Devil's Pact: Unease

As consciousness returned to her, Agura Ibadlen realized she had one huge migraine – which, considering the fact her impact had knocked her head into the cab's support struts, wasn't all that surprising. Though the structure of the Tangler looked like that of the average car, it was built of a metal that wouldn't warp from explosions, with glass that couldn't be shattered except from the inside.

Groaning, she sat up, thankful for her seatbelt. Unlike Vert, Stanford, and the Cortez brothers, she spent most of her time climbing walls, so she didn't have a single link holding her in her seat – she wore a four-point harness that Air Force pilots had in their fighter jets, and it had kept her from taking serious injury when the crevasse had opened. Her only injury was a superficial one – a large skin break where she had smacked her head, leaving a larger-than-normal scab on her right temple.

Her assessment complete, Agura leaned forward and cracked open her glove compartment, where she had stashed her first aid kit and emergency supplies. Concerned for the welfare of her friends since the beginning, Sage had insisted that the Battle Force 5 carry enough supplies to stay alive, in the likely event they were stranded somewhere in the Multiverse. As the Tangler was the second-largest "usual" vehicle, seconded only by the Buster and Gearslammer (which were, in turn, dwarfed by the Mobi), she carried enough to support five days on her own.

Ignoring the vacuum-sealed package of freeze-dried food, Agura removed the other bag and began pawing through what looked like half the medicine cabinet. Removing a large bandage, cotton pads, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, one of her seven water bottles, and a small Ziploc baggie of ibuprofen, she set about cleaning up her headbang and easing her migraine, using her rearview mirror to watch her movements.

Doing the mundane tasks helped the African-American feel at ease, like she was back at home with her parents or in the Hub, tending an accident on Earth instead of in this rocky, unstable Battlezone – more specifically, in a collapsed system of caverns that she had become trapped in; her and one of the Red Sentients. The longer she and the Tangler sat here, the better chance they would be able to find her before her friends could.

Finishing her maintenance – looking all the world like a pirate with her patch – Agura leaned forward and activated the Tangler's systems. It was anyone's guess if it would move, but her comm. system still worked.

"Vert. Come in, Vert. Status update."

She got no reply. She repeated it two times more, then switched to trying to contact the Cortezes, Zoom, and Stanford. As a last resort, she tried to raise Sage, but she only got static.

_Alright, I can't expect help from those fronts. Time for Plan B._

Flipping on her headlights, Agura examined the small cavern she was inside. She had been tucked inside an alcove when she had awakened, which had protected her from falling rock. The whole place was the size of the Mobi, and there was one tunnel going northwest.

Holding her breath, she turned over the engine. Without even a splutter, the Tangler roared back to life.

"Bless you, Sage," she whispered.

Wrapping her hands around the toggles, she began directing the ATV over the rubble towards the exit. She had things to do – first to find the Red trapped with her, and then look for a passage back to the surface. Her scanners indicated that it was three-quarters of a mile below the surface down here, so there was a possibility of finding a pool of water to keep her supplied.

And if all she found of the Red was a shattered shell, so much the better.

**XxX**

Her dash clock told Agura that it was 5:20 in the afternoon by Earth standards, but the African-American wasn't sure how timed flowed in this Battlezone. It had been roughly 3:30 when they had entered what Spinner had dubbed the Crevice Zone, and 3:48 when she had been caught in a cave-in of one of the huge plains of crumbling shale. When the Tangler's systems had reactivated, the clock had read 4:46, meaning she had spent over half an hour combing the interweaving tunnels, looking both for a way out and for the Red trapped in here with her.

There was one thing he took comfort in: Krytus was not the one in here; she knew he had been wrapped up in a fight with Vert when she had fallen. It was a small saving grace, but it didn't mean much when it meant one of the other members of his crew were down here. She didn't know who exactly had fallen with her, as all of the RS5 had the same color scheme, but if it had been Kytren, she most likely had nothing to worry about; the Vylirex didn't offer much protection for its rider. Kysosys, she estimated, had a fifty-fifty chance of surviving; Krylox was almost certain to make it unscathed.

Agura didn't want to think about to Kyburi, but if she, a more fragile Human, could live through this collapse, undoubtedly the vampire-like Sentient could too. She wished it weren't so, as there had been an instant enmity between the two ATV drivers when they had first crossed paths, and as Kyburi's Venikus had a stealth mode the Tangler lacked, she could be right behind Agura and the scanners wouldn't pick her up until it was too late.

On top of that, Kyburi was Krytus' First Lieutenant and supposed mate (the BF5 wasn't sure, as they only had audio exchanges for evidence). If she was indeed down here and had not Respawned, Krytus would probably try to find her personally.

_Cheerful._

As if to accent that thought, the Tangler's headlights flooded a cavern smaller than the one she had revived in. Technically, that one had been five miles due south of this place, but the tunnels didn't go due south.

Pulling inside slowly and cautiously, Agura triggered her scanners. While they weren't nearly as through as those in the Buster, they worked for her. After Krytus had been released from the Krypt Zone, Sage had upgraded all of their systems to detect traces of Red Sentient Antimatter within a three mile radius. At her request, the Blue Sentient had pushed the limits of that program for the Tangler, making it possible to compare the readings with samples taken from broken shells. They allowed the Human Hunter to identify the readings as vehicle or Sentient, and then find out who was the owner.

When she activated this program now, the fine-tuned scanners picked up a trace amount of vehicle Antimatter. Much to Agura's irritation, it matched that of a six-legged ATV-monster truck hybrid.

Kyburi was down here. Whether she was still in the tunnels remained to be seen, but the Alpha Hunter had been the Red that had fallen with Agura. With the reading lodged in the Tangler's system, the vice-commander of Battle Force 5 triggered the secondary function of her sensors, allowing her vehicle to scan the environment for matching traces of Antimatter, and then deduce actions from the patterns.

With the more sensitive function triggered, a sunburst appeared where the first reading was, indicating the destruction of the Venikus, if only temporarily. While bright, it lacked the deeper shade of red that indicated Kyburi's shell had been fatally punctured, meaning the female Red Sentient had survived the crash into the caverns. A smaller, less-vivid splotch showed where Kyburi had reformed her vehicle; a trail led from that area – across the ground, up the opposite wall, and …

_Uh-oh._

Like a mammoth, mechanized, scarlet-silver spider, the Venikus dropped down from the ceiling, where it had been dangling on one of its grapple lines in stealth mode. Too late, Agura looked up to see the six-legged car diving fangs-first for the Tangler; before she could rev her engines and get out of the way, Kyburi had her, fangs sinking deep as the skeletal wheels wrapped around the limbs of the Human's vehicle.

The functions of the Venikus took hold immediately. Red flowed over the Tangler from the fangs' puncture points, sapping electricity from the green car and draining it into the Alpha Hunter's vehicle. Agura tried to activate the defensive countermeasures she had implemented, but Kyburi's surprise attack had already sucked too much out of the Tangler; that and the hold it was in made it – for all practical purposes – paralyzed.

Agura hated feeling like prey – she was the one who was supposed to hunt, not be hunted.

Abruptly the draining stopped, but the Tanger was still paralyzed. With a loud _THUD!_, Kyburi herself dropped out of the Venikus' cab and landed solidly on Agura's windshield, glaring through the glass at the dark-skinned Human that was the thorn in her side. As always, Agura was struck by the appearance of her Red Sentient counterpart. After battling the Red Sentient 5 for nearly six months, one might expect her to have grown used to them. However, the Reds were like demons in appearance and manner – one good look was not enough to take in the details.

It didn't help that the Respawn Chambers the RS5 used made minor differences between each shell the owner generated. As she returned Kyburi's glare, Agura noted that the Alpha Hunter's sulfurous eyes were now shaped like almonds, instead of the cat-slits they had been last time they had fought. It was impossible to tell if her tribal-tattoo patterns had changed – like a tiger's stripes, none of the Reds had the exact same pattern – but the spider-like Hunter symbol that designated her specialized traits was still branded over where a Human's sternum would be. As energy lifeforms, Sentients of any color lacked the internal structures of carbon-based organisms, allowing their life force to be tied to a Respawn Chamber.

Agura forced herself to push aside what her studies into Sage's databases had taught her and focus on the situation. Pulling back on her joysticks, the African-American teen dropped her seat down on the convenient lift so she could get out of the cab. As she descended, she grabbed the weapons Sage had provided her in case of close-combat situations. Originally, only Vert and Zoom had had them, since they were the most likely to go hand-to-hand, but after Agura and Kyburi had grappled over the fate of the Magmatrox, Sage had designed a pair of gloves outfitted with claw-like electric dischargers, able to take down a Vandal if she landed a punch.

Rolling out of the seat, the Second-in-Command of BF5 finished pulling on the gloves just as Kyburi dropped onto the ground five feet away, crouching in a way that sheltered her stomach area, one hand placed on the earth for stability, the other held up and behind in a threatening display of her hooked claws, which could steal the life force of anything unfortunate enough to get caught on them.

Agura balled her hands into fists, but her opponent simply rose to her stiletto-heeled feet (why an Alpha Hunter would have high heels built into her anatomy was beyond the tomboy's comprehension), folding her arms over her chest. While her aggressive expression didn't change a bit, the fact remained: Kyburi was not making a move, attacking or defending herself.

When it came to hunting or competing against her teammates, the teen was guided by a code of honor similar to Vert's when he was wielding his sword. When it came to fighting an enemy, though, Agura was a no-holds-barred warrior. Kyburi standing before her was just an invitation to land the decisive blow – which might just be what the Red Sentient wanted; to be sent back to her Respawn Chamber and escape this Battlezone the easiest way she could.

Of course, that didn't fit with the ambush, but maybe Kyburi was unable to deal fatal damage to herself consciously. Whatever it was, Agura just wanted this smirking show-off out of her face; if Kyburi was willing to take the blow, she'd gladly deliver it.

Charging forward, she swung out her fist – only for her fist to get caught in the Red Sentient's long-fingered grasp. With reflexes faster than any Earth creature, Kyburi had disengaged her arms from their folded position, caught the force of Agura's fist, and – seizing the front of the Human's green battlesuit – held her up in the air, toes just barely brushing the ground.

"I was willing to let you leave this place, Human," the Sentient growled, vocal tones just low enough to be menacing. "But perhaps you are more suicidal than I thought you were."

Normally Agura would take offence from such a comment, but her surprise about what had been said stalled her. _Kyburi was going to let her go?_

"Nice way to say 'I'm not gonna fight,'" she snapped back. "I never thought you Reds had any pity."

Kyburi hissed angrily between her teeth. "Don't talk to me about pity, Human – we have no pity in us. It is why you will fail in the end, no matter how valiant your attempts to defy us. But Krytus will not be pleased if I break my shell and Respawn when I have you now."

"Get to the point, Kyburi," snapped Agura, refusing to back down even with those dangerous claws millimeters from her throat.

"I am giving you a choice, Human," snapped the female Red, gripping the front of Agura's battlesuit tighter as the Sentient hoisted her counterpart up so she couldn't touch the ground anymore. "You have three options. Option One: You accompany me to the surface of this Battlezone, and we settle the score there. During the time interim, we do not attack each other."

Agura snorted; Kyburi narrowed her eyes. "Option Two: I kill you quickly, take your vehicle back to my homeworld, and access the coordinates to Earth from your systems. Option Three" – the Red Sentient grinned, fangs gleaming – "I kill you slowly and painfully, until you tell me what I want. Make your choice."

The dark-skinned woman wasn't long in firing off a criticism. "Just how do I know you'll stick to your promise when I pick?"

"You don't," her arch-nemesis returned. "But an Alpha Hunter never breaks her word."

Agura somehow doubted that – she trusted her enemy about as far as she could throw the Mobi – but Kyburi would gleefully fulfill her promise if she picked the violent options, and in any case she had to protect Sage. If she were to have any chance of making it home, she would have to place her trust in the Sentient's oath.

"Option one," she said out loud, keeping Kyburi's gaze and glaring at her, "but I've got my eyes on you."

Like the whole thing was a big joke between old friends, Krytus' First Lieutenant dropped the Human back on the ground with a slightly unhinged laugh. "As do I, Agura Ibadlen."

As she walked towards the interlocked vehicles beside her enemy, Agura wasn't sure what unnerved her more: that Kyburi hadn't been more disappointed that she skirted the lethal options, or that she knew her full name.

**XxX**

**A/N: **While I admit this is highly unlikely, it's still entertaining to consider. The next chapter will be told completely from Kyburi's POV, then the rest of them will alternate POVs as I see fit. =P

-Inferna Firesword


	2. Less Than Perfect

Devil's Pact: Less than Perfect

Kyburi was disappointed that she hadn't been able to rattle Agura to the point where she'd be reduced to a quivering wreck – her life would have been so much easier if that had happened. Those sorts were more willing to give up their secrets than the Human female, whom she had a sort of respect for. There were few beings in the Multiverse that could have the mentality of an icicle when they where inches from death at her claws, not counting the other members of the Red Sentient 5, and even fewer of those had the audacity to insult her under such circumstances. Agura was one of those beings.

The point remained – the Red Sentient female had no intention of fighting Agura down here, where the rock jammed her comm. and positioning devices, making it impossible to alert Krytus of her position. Better to do it aboveground, where the RS5 could join her in subduing the driver of the green, inferior vehicle that was so similar to the Venikus.

_Green._ Sun and stars, why did her self-styled rival _have _to have green as her color?

Every bad or irritating thing in Kyburi's life had some green in it. The Verginch color she was allergic to, frying up her systems if she tried to consume its life force? Green. The dominant color of the Battlezone Zemerik had subdued her in for cryostasis? Green. The color of her _real_ rival's eyes? A yellow-green that was rather nauseating to look at, but green all the same.

Thankfully, Kyburi had killed Salmacis eons ago, so she didn't have to concern herself with _that_ Red Sentient anymore.

Shaking the thoughts aside, the Red Sentient bounded up into the Venikus, the vehicle that was a part of her. The problem here was that the Tangler was mostly drained of energy, and the Venikus couldn't return energy that it stole. They would have to stay put until the incendium chip that powered the other vehicle could recharge.

As Kyburi released the Tangler and willed her vehicle back inside herself, Agura was pulling out her survival kit from the green car. There was no kindling for a fire down here, so the bedroll the Human had packed would need to do for warmth.

It went against Kyburi's nature, but for a moment she considered offering to share her heat. Red Sentients were made up of antimatter, which was a very hot form of energy – the reason that her people were associated with the element of Fire. For all her threats, the Alpha Hunter had no real intention to kill Agura – yet. She had to at least haul her to the Red Sentient world for interrogation for everything she knew about Earth and Sage, then her fate would lie in how much the RS5 wanted a slave.

Upon second thought, though, Kyburi rejected it. Even if she made the offer, Agura was unlikely to accept – she was half-expecting her counterpart to sleep with one eye open.

Leaving the Human to her own devices, the vice-commander of RS5 checked her energy levels – high enough to last her for a recharge, but she'd need to hunt later on to keep them strong enough to be able to reform the Venikus once they were ready to go.

Setting her internal systems to awaken her six hours from now, Kyburi folded her body into a tight ball around itself – but she didn't dare go into hibernation mode; there could be any manner of things that could happen if she was truly asleep. At least like this, she could quickly react if something happened.

**XxX**

_The roar of the crowds was nearly deafening, the voices of thousands of Red Sentients emanating from the stadium seats. They were on their feet, cheering on their favorite warriors, almost drunk on the sight. Some were cheering on the one currently losing, but caught up as they were, they cheered anyway._

_In the center of the arena, a pair of vehicle engines roared, a deeper bass than the audience could generate. One was six-legged, spindly; the hybrid of an ATV and a monster truck. The other was smaller, but more agile, armed with drills on the front and a pair of leg springs tucked beneath its rear fender._

_The Venikus leapt up into the air and clung to a broken pillar, digging deep as its driver ascended. The opposing vehicle – the Subterfuse – was crumbled and sparking; Kyburi could tell that the battle with her prey was almost over. Perching on top of the shattered support, she watched as the Subterfuse leapt up and then fired its drills, allowing it to plow deep into the earth. She had deliberately prolonged the battle so she could get a measure of her enemy's tactics. While the other female was a gladiator, she was one that was accustomed to winning with the same strategy over and over again. By reviewing records of her victories, the Alpha Hunter had found that she would burrow beneath the ground after using stun blasts, and then rip up underneath them while her enemies were paralyzed and let the drills do the talking._

_That had been the first mistake: relying on the same trick. When it became clear to everyone that the Subterfuse, for whatever reasons, was incapable of sending out stun blasts today, Kyburi had gained the upper hand._

_The Venikus' thermal imaging centered on the ground, where the Subterfuse was lying in wait inside its' tunnel. Salmacis' vehicle was capable of sensing the tiniest of movements, in or on the ground; Kyburi knew that too. In fact, she knew everything about her opponent and former friend, thanks to good research and an inside source of information._

_Slipping into stealth mode, the Venikus' driver prepared her jump. If she timed it right, she could end this with one, decisive blow. Making a final set of adjustments, she finally dove, aiming for a spot just in front of the place her prey hid._

_The impact was hard, and with the hair trigger that the Subterfuse had, it was breaching the surface almost instantly. Without taking a second to breathe, Kyburi lunged upward, using the Venikus' back legs to leap up. As she jumped, she deployed her fangs._

_The ATV slammed directly into the undercarriage of its enemy, front legs wrapping around its cab in a bear hug. The fangs sank inside; energy began to drain out. Over her comm., Kyburi could hear her enemy crying out in surprise and in disbelief, not wanting to comprehend that this was the death blow._

_Angling down so the Subterfuse was between the Venikus and the ground, Kyburi rode out the fall and the resulting explosion as the other car was destroyed. By the time the dust cleared, Salmacis was down, pinned beneath the wheels of the victor's vehicle._

_Ignoring the screams of the crowd, Kyburi dropped out of the cab and walked so she could look at Salmacis eye-to-eye. The Alpha Hunter of those days wasn't nearly as voluptuous as she was in present days – her captive and defeated rival was the one with the looks._

"_Game over," she growled, yellow-green eyes glaring up at her conqueror._

_Kyburi had nothing to say to that – it was truth. Instead, she knelt down so their faces were close, and while the crowd still screamed with bloodlust, the words exchanged were for Salmacis' ears alone._

"_I did not wish for this to happen," she hissed. "Were the circumstances and tradition different, I would've have let you live. But … what has happened to cause this is fate."_

_Her claws rose up for the final blow. "Pity."_

_Kyburi's nails punctured Salmacis' shell, and the other female let out a shriek as her life swirled out of its body. But she did not rise up and dissolve into nothingness – the Alpha Hunter had the gladiator's life force in her hands, swirling around her body in a blood-red mist._

"_Krytus liked you first," she murmured to herself, absorbing part of the antimatter while letting more go. "We may be bonded, shell and soul, but I may need what he admired in you to be perfect."_

_The cloud swirled despairingly around her once more before it disappeared. Kyburi stood alone beside an empty shell, and as the surprised crowd watched, her figure changed. The Alpha Hunter had taken far more than Salmacis' life: she had taken part of Salmacis' soul, stealing the physical attributes that males had found attractive and incorporating them into her slender frame._

_Smiling triumphantly, the Alpha Hunter rose up her arms, and the adoration of the crowd was not far after the action._

**XxX**

It wasn't the alarm that Kyburi had set that roused her – it was the jolts from her dream making her head hit the rocks she had curled up beside. Anxiously, she ran an internal-external scan, checking for any damage. Sentient shells were made of a super-tough crystal, which could take a lot of abuse, but who knew just how long she had been smacking against the stone?

Thankfully, her scans came back clean – what damage had been done was already being repaired. Relieved, Kyburi opened her eyes, silently thanking the Creator that she had not been forced to Respawn. To have the potential key to getting Sage in her grasp, only to lose her because of accidental damage … Krytus wasn't someone who punished his teammates, but even he had his limitations.

As expected, Agura was curled up in her bedroll underneath the Tangler – from the looks of things she had fallen asleep hugging one of the wheels with one arm and clutching the gloves with the other. Scans indicated that her body temperature was lower than usual, but the four-legged ATV was recharged and ready to go.

For the barest nanosecond, the thought occurred to her that if she was going to kill the Human, the time was now.

Her prey was sleeping. Sleeping prey was vulnerable prey. Instinctively her claws came out – the claws that were her most fearsome weapons. They didn't just steal energy from her victims – they ripped their life force out of their bodies and into her, allowing Kyburi to absorb the knowledge and attributes they had. One stab to the Human's neck and the struggle would be all over.

Just as quickly, Kyburi got a grip on herself.

Krytus knew her abilities; he'd seen what she'd done to Salmacis on the day she had died. All the same, he and the others would want Agura to be alive, in case they needed her as leverage later on.

Besides, it was just energy deprivation talking. When the Alpha Hunter's energy levels dropped below thirty percent – as they were now – her systems would automatically mark any living being in the vicinity and start calculating strategies to subdue it as quickly as possible.

Unfolding her limbs with her usual, casual grace, Kyburi made herself turn away, forced herself to ignore Agura Ibadlen. And to her credit, she managed to not look back as she slipped into the tunnels.

**XxX**

Getting out of the cavern helped Kyburi avoid killing the Human for power, but it didn't solve her current problem. Wandering through the tunnels, leaving her unique scent trail for her to double back on, the Red Sentient shoved all thoughts of the outside aside, letting her senses direct her towards potential prey. Her night vision had been swapped out for her thermal imaging functions – if there was anything endothermic down here, she'd see it.

There – a four-legged creature, hiding in a burrow. It wasn't just her thermal vision that told her what lay under the earth, as the Alpha Hunter prepared to strike. Humans didn't understand most of her adaptations, but any Red Sentient could not only recognize them – they could identify their functions.

The spikes on her head, reminiscent to fire, were extremely sensitive receptors, allowing Kyburi to detect traces of pheromones and electricity that her prey emitted. The stiletto heels – which Agura surely scorned – allowed her to feel motion in and on the ground. Her thin face housed powerful audio receptors, able to hear sounds in the ultrasonic range and hold her balance even on unstable ground. The Battle Force 5 just thought that her claws were her weapons, but in truth, her entire body was a finely-honed weapon.

The prey beneath the dirt and stone didn't stand a chance. Kyburi's claws found their mark when she plunged them down the tunnel, piercing the base of its neck where its brain stem was and letting her steal its life force for a recharge. Satisfied as her power levels rose well above fifty percent, the Sentient hauled her prey out of the burrow to take a look at what she had drained. It was some kind of rodent, but not any she had seen before. It was roughly six handspans long from nose to rump, and that wasn't counting the naked tail, which was about twice the creature's length.

Kyburi's hands, when all the fingers were splayed out, measured to about one Human foot. This thing was massive, and what was worse was that her scans indicated that this was a juvenile – not a fully-grown creature.

Just how big did the wildlife get in this Battlezone? Now that she thought about it, the tunnels and caverns down here couldn't _all _be natural …

Despite her nature, the Red Sentient felt a shudder run through her shell. Hastily dropping the still-warm corpse, she got out of her hunched position, eyes flicking around in paranoia and her sensors on high alert. Thankfully, she soon came to the conclusion that there was no immediate danger nearby, but that didn't stop her from thinking: _We have to get out of here._

She might have a reputation as a big-game huntress, but when she went after quarry like a Magmatrox, Kyburi was usually in the company of other Alpha Hunters, or at least capable Red Sentients. This time she had a Human in tow, one she needed to keep alive until she got back to the Red Sentient Planet. While Agura was a Hunter too, the vice-commander of the Red Sentient 5 would rather stay out of the sight of the natural creatures – the less damage they both took, the better.

Moving with caution, Kyburi slipped further down the tunnel.

**XxX**

The passage had a subtle upward slant; Kyburi had been able to tell even before she had gone hunting. Her olfactory sensors could detect faint traces of surface air, air without the dankness of the tunnels, flowing towards her as she walked. This was the right way to go if they were going to get out.

A faint beeping noise sounded in her ears, and it took a moment to realize that it was the timer she had set six hours ago. When she had been roused by her dream and gone off hunting, the Red Sentient had neglected to turn it off.

Idly, Kyburi did so at that very instant, then turned back the way she'd come. After setting a psychic tracking device into the wall, so she'd know where to go, the Alpha Hunter reformed the Venikus and began to return back to the camp. Doubtlessly Agura was awakening now, if she hadn't already, and Kyburi needed to make sure she hadn't contacted her teammates.

Kyburi couldn't – she had tried before she had laid her ambush, and again before driving – but who knew what tricks that blasted Sage had put in the Tangler?

The return trip wasn't as long as the Venikus drove, so it didn't take more than five minutes until Kyburi made it back to the cavern. She was just in time to catch Agura about to go up the tunnel in the Tangler, all her supplies packed away.

"Where were you?" the dark-skinned Human demanded instantly.

"Hunting and scouting," the Red Sentient returned. "What were _you _doing?"

"About to go looking for you."

Through two windshields, the opposites eyed each other with suspicion, neither really sure if they trusted the other's word. Before the tension could dissipate or escalate, both sets of sensors went haywire as they detected something.

"Large heat source, roughly fifty feet long and twenty tall," reported Agura. "It's heading this way, from the tunnel you came out of."

Kyburi had a sinking feeling that she knew what was coming. It looked like she was going to find out what size the creatures were down here, after all.

**XxX**

**Mood Music: **"S&M" ~ Rihanna (Kyburi's theme) (to me, anyway)

"Independent Women Part I" ~ Destiny's Child (Agura's theme)

**A/N: **As you can probably guess, the next chapter will have a fight scene. I'll also flesh out the circumstances behind the dream/flashback that Kyburi had in a future chapter; I'm guessing either the next one or the one after that. (I'm estimating that this story will have five more chapters.)

Enjoy. =)

-Inferna


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